ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, has dismissed 103 employees this year for various misconduct violations, with 11 cases escalated to law enforcement over suspected criminal activities.
According to the company’s latest disciplinary report, the cases involve allegations including embezzlement and non-state employee bribery, though details of some cases remain undisclosed.
The misconduct spanned multiple departments: three cases each from ByteDance’s e-commerce and lifestyle services divisions, two cases from Douyin, and one each from the human resources and financial operations department respectively.
Corruption in procurement and bidding processes featured prominently in the report. In multiple divisions, including e-commerce, Douyin, and enterprise services, former employees allegedly accepted kickbacks to favor specific suppliers.
A high-profile incident highlighted in the report involved a former intern accused of tampering with code in ByteDance’s commercial products and technology department, disrupting AI model training between June and July.
The intern allegedly was motivated by frustration over internal resource allocation, triggering him to mess with the code and corrupt over 800 H100 GPUs.
The intern’s contract was terminated, and ByteDance reported the case to the Sunshine Integrity Alliance and the Enterprise Anti-Fraud Alliance, as well as to the intern’s university. These alliances, which include members such as Alibaba and Midea, are dedicated to combating corporate fraud and enhancing industry compliance.
Additionally, the report mentioned a serious data breach incident involving a former employee who is now under investigation for allegedly selling confidential company information to external parties. Other than the intern’s case, the report did not specify the timeframe for these incidents.
ByteDance's widespread layoffs in Southeast Asia
ByteDance also seems to be pulling a mass layoff throughout all of its headquarters in the different parts of Southeast Asia.
For example, TikTok let go of hundreds of staff in its Malaysia headquarters. A source close to the Malaysian branch of the company told The Malaysian Reserve that more than 500 individuals were terminated after receiving emails from the company.
It was reported that ByteDance has fired these employees who were mostly from the content moderation department in exchange for automated systems that would allow the company to more quickly filter out inappropriate, harmful or policy-violating content with the new AI.
Similarly, ByteDance has also laid off 450 employees in its Indonesian branch as the company is restructuring its operations after striking a deal with tech giant Tokopedia. The layoffs represent 9% of Bytedance's workforce in Indonesia.
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